7: Jewish Survival - the Fact and its Implications

This chapter will finish the survey of the evidence.
So far, we have seen the prediction of Deuteronomy 28-30, a brief
survey of the archaeological evidence, and an argument for the
Biblical description of miraculous events. We will now see three
more pieces of evidence and then draw the conclusion.

Jewish survival has long enjoyed widespread attention.
It is clear to all that the Jewish historical experience is unique
in ways which cannot easily be explained. This has attracted
the ambition of historians of all stripes to try the mettle of
their favorite theories on this extraordinarily difficult historical
problem. For Jews, this fact has more personal implications. It
sets them apart from the common human experience and gives them
a point of pride in their connection to an indestructible people.
In spite of all this professional and personal interest, the
message of Jewish survival has been doubly missed by historians
and (non-traditional) laymen, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

First, the nature of the fact itself has not been
appreciated. Its extent - over 3000 years admitted even by the
most severe critics - and the uniqueness of the enormous historical
pressures which should have caused the disappearance of the Jewish
people, are not analyzed in detail. The result is that the superficial
suggestions offered to explain Jewish survival are taken seriously,
when attention to the details would show them to be clearly incompetent.
Second, there is a failure to focus specifically on WHAT has survived.
In particular, no account is taken of the many experiments of
large populations of Jews with other cultural forms which have
not survived. The purpose of this chapter is to rectify both
of these mistakes. We will start with a survey of the features
which make Jewish survival so difficult to explain. Then the most
popular theories designed to explain Jewish survival will be tested
against those fact(s).

Jewish history can be divided into two major periods:
from its inception to the destruction of the second Temple, and
from that date to the present. Each period presents its own obstacles
to historical explanation. We start with a survey of the unique
features of each.

Ancient Jewish history comprises at the very least
1000 years from the time of king David to the destruction of the
second Temple.11 For approximately ninety percent of this period,
i.e. for all but the exile in Babylon, there was a large concentration
of Jewish population and an independent Jewish state in the land
of Israel.12

What is striking about this period is the unparalleled
uniqueness of Jewish belief. Principles shared by virtually every
ancient culture contrast sharply with Jewish sources. The general
agreement among other cultures is due to two factors. First, their
beliefs reflect common circumstances (the constants in the human
condition in the ancient world - birth, death, war and peace,
dependence upon poorly understood natural phenomena, etc.). Second,
cultures in contact affect one another: ideas are borrowed and
mutually modified. Judaism is assumed to have shared the first
factor with all other cultures13, and its geographical position
("the crossroads of three continents") made it extraordinarily
susceptible to the second. Its uniqueness is thus very difficult
to explain. What follows are six examples of distinctive Jewish
beliefs14.

1. Monotheism. Polytheistic idolatry is the
rule in ancient religions. The restriction of worship to a single
deity is almost unknown3 . The reason is simple: natural phenomena
are so disparate that they are inevitably assigned to different
deities, and then each of those deities must be served or else
the natural forces under their control will injure the errant
community. The uncompromising commitment of Judaism to one G-d
only is without parallel in the ancient world.

2. Exclusivity. Each ancient nation had its
own pantheon of gods. But each recognized the appropriateness
of other nations worshipping its own pantheon. The universalism,
and consequent exclusivity of Judaism are absent from ancient
religions15. Thus, aside from Antiochus' attempt to eliminate
Judaism, there are no religious wars in the ancient world16! When
one country conquered another the second was usually required
to acknowledge the chief god of the conqueror, and the conquered
were usually happy to comply: the very fact that they lost the
war proved that the others' chief god was very powerful. The rest
of the religion of the conquered nation was left intact. Only
the Jews proclaimed a universal and exclusive concept of deity:
our G-d is the only one, all others are fantasy.

3. Spirituality. Ancient religions associated
gods very closely with physical objects and/or phenomena. They
abound in nature deities: gods of the sun, moon, sea, fertility,
death etc. Often the gods are given human form. The only ancient
religion to declare that G-d has no physical embodiment, form
or likeness is Judaism.

4. G-d as absolute. Ancient religions picture
the gods as limited in power. Many start with a genealogy of the
gods. That means that certain powers predate them and are out
of their control. Only Judaism understands G-d as the creator
of all that exists and completely unlimited in His power over
creation.

5. Morality. The gods of the ancient world
are pictured as petty tyrants acting out their all-too-human desires
in conflict with men and with one another. No condition of absolute
moral perfection applies to those gods. Only the Jewish G-d is
defined as meeting that description.

6. Anti-homosexuality. All ancient cultures
permitted some forms of homosexuality, and for many it had religious
application. The only exception is Judaism which opposed all forms
of homosexuality, whether religious or merely hedonistic17.

To ancient cultures, these Jewish beliefs appeared
absurd. They contradicted the common experience and convictions
of all mankind. Maintaining them branded Jews as quixotic outcasts.
The historical problem is to explain how a people originated and
preserved so extreme a set of beliefs without being overwhelmed
by the unanimous consensus of all other nations.

This problem cannot be solved by appeal to the general
success of Jewish cultural achievement. The Jewish nation did
not enjoy any outstanding secular success which could have served
as the means of preserving Judaism. There was no far-flung Jewish
empire, no revolutionary innovations in mathematics, medicine,
economics, architecture, the arts, philosophy etc. Had there been
such, we might have explained the survival of Judaism as a mere
accompaniment of an otherwise successful society.

One final characteristic of ancient Judaism must
be noted. Throughout the ancient period Jews experimented with
other forms of religious belief and practice. The prophets testify
to Jewish idol worship. (This must be understood as syncretism:
not an abandonment of Judaism in toto but an amalgamation to local
conditions. "The Jewish G-d took us out of Egypt, so He is
very powerful, so of course we celebrate Passover. However, if
you want your garden to prosper, a sacrifice to the local baal
will help!") During the Babylonian exile a significant percentage
of Jews intermarried and adapted their beliefs to the Babylonian
milieu. When Greek culture became dominant in the Middle East
many Jews became Hellenized. During the end of the second Temple,
the Sadducees rejected the traditional Oral Law and substituted
their own adaptations of Jewish practice. Needless to say, all
these efforts eventually failed. Thus the survival of Judaism
stands in contrast with those competing Jewish cultural forms
which expired.

Now we turn to the second period of Jewish history:
from the destruction of the second Temple to the present. During
this period, Jewish communities were widely spread among a variety
of antagonistic majority cultures, without any central authority
or control. What ought to be expected of Judaism under such conditions?
From the experience of other cultures, we should expect large-scale
cultural borrowing and influence. Yemenite Jews should show the
influence of Arab-Moslem culture and religion, French Jews the
influence of Catholicism, Russian Jews the influence of Eastern
Orthodoxy, etc. Each community should show the the influences
of the geography of its physical environment. How critical should
these influences be?

Let us take as a comparison the development of Christianity
during the same period. At present there are hundreds of different
Christian sects, each with its own version of the original doctrines
and events of early Christianity. The Trinity is understood in
widely different ways by Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans and
Unitarians. The Eucharist is the real consumption of the blood
and flesh of the founder of Christianity for some, a symbolic
representation for others, and dispensed with entirely by others.
This wide variation means that the original information cannot
be reliably recovered.18

Now this occurred to a religion which was in a majority
position from the time of Constantine, with both central authority
and control. Whatever the details of the historical forces which
lead to the loss of their origins, those forces should have applied
to Judaism with infinitely more power. In fact, what happened
is the opposite: there is no disagreement concerning the fundamentals
of Jewish belief, practice and experience of 1900 years ago. Thus
the survival of Judaism during this period is utterly unexpected,
violating the normal process of cultural transformation.

(Here we must be careful not to misunderstand the
contemporary division among the "branches of Judaism".
They do not differ concerning what Jews of 1900 years ago believed
and practiced: there is no doubt that Shabbos was celebrated on
Saturday, that pork was forbidden, that the coming of the messiah
and the rebuilding of the Temple were the goals of Jewish history,
and that they believed every letter of the five books of Moses
to have been dictated by G-d at Sinai. They differ only concerning
how much of the Judaism of 1900 years ago should be practiced
today. This is not at all parallel to Christianity in which matters
of equal centrality are very much in debate.)

In addition, as in the ancient period, this second
period saw Jews experimenting with modifications of Judaism. The
Karaites repeated the Sadduces denial of the traditional Oral
Law. The Marranos tried to deal with the Inquisition by feigning
Christian practice in public while living as Jews privately. Both
of these experiments were historical failures: the Marranos have
disappeared from the Jewish people, and the Karaites are a scattered
and dying sect. (The more modern experiments at modifying traditional
Judaism still exist and thus strictly speaking we cannot yet judge
their historical fate. But if past experiments are any guide....)
The survival of Judaism as we know it was not without competition
from other Jewish allegiances.

Now let us use these aspects of the historical
record to test the adequacy of the popular explanations of Jewish
survival. The most common theory of Jewish survival is persecution:
the will to spite the oppressor's goal to annihilate one's people
and culture.19 The idea is that Jews' resolve to maintain their
unique identity is a response to their being defined as alien
by the non-Jewish world. If Jews would only be accepted as equals
and given access to non-Jewish society, Judaism would disappear.

This theory fails on three counts. First, it does
not even apply to the period of national independence. Persecution
does not preserve the culture of an independent nation. Second,
we are not the only culture which has been conquered and persecuted.
Christianity and Islam both became world religions by the sword.
When the Roman empire became Christian, the scores of local cultures
under their control were given the choice: Chrisitanity or death.
Islam gave the same choice to the cultrues of the Arabian pinunnsula,
North Africa and the East: Islam or death. Hundreds of local cultures
diappeared under that pressure. Why did persecution not produce
their survival? (Or is the theory that only the Jews spiteful
enoughto want their cultture to survive.?)

Third, the last 1900 years has not been a period
of uniformly severe persecution. Judaism survived the "golden
age" of Spain, and traditional Judaism is enjoying a renaissance
in contemporary America. According to the theory, we should have
expected the group with the strongest Jewish identity disappear
the fastest in the absence of persecution as the prop for its
existence; this is precisely what is not happening.

A second theory to explain Jewish survival asserts
that Jews simply have a special ability to preserve their culture.
Each culture has its own special gifts. Americans connsistently
invent new technology, Russians produce great novels, Italy invented
the opera, etc. Perhaps it is just a Jewish cultural gift to produce
long-lasting cultural products. (Whether this ability it genetic
or acquired - a gene or a genius - the theory does not say.)
Even so vague a suggestion can be refuted by the historical record:
if there were such an ability, why did it not enable all the Jewish
experiments at modifying traditional Judaism to survive also?
Where are the Jewish polytheists of the first Temple, the Babylonian
and Hellenistic Jews, the Sadduces, Karaites and Marranos? If
it is a cultural gift of the Jewish people, it ought to work more
than once.

A third type of theory holds that certain aspects
of Judaism - beliefs, values, laws, customs, social forms, etc.
- have enabled it to survive. For example, it is asserted that
dietary restrictions serve to separate Jews from non-Jews and
help the former to preserve their identity. The same holds for
unique styles of dress, religiouspractices, language, etc. The
commitment to literacy and scholarship creates a cultural barrier
isoalting Jews from foreign influence. In short, the content of
Jewish culture gives a natural explanation for Jewish survival.

This type of theory fails for three reasons. First,
other cultures had their own unique styles, some including dietary
restrictions, costumes, religious practices, etc. We would need
a survey of extinct cultures in order to check that the features
of Jewish practice and values are really unique to Judaism. If
they are not unique, then they cannot be used to explain survival,
since cultures which had them did not survive.

Second,20 no reason is given to think that the cited
aspects of Judaism should contribute to survival, rather than
being irrelevant or even harmful. That only Judaism has survived
and only Judaism has a particular feature A, does not imply that
A contributes to Judaism's survival. (Compare: Why was Roger Bannister
the first person to run the mile in less than four minutes? Because
his name was Roger Bannister!) We would need independent evidence
which shows that A contributes to survival.

In the case of dietary restrictions, a small group
of immigrants could find them an embarrassment. Imagine an immigrant
to the lower East side of New York, living side by side with Irish,
Greek, Polish, Italian and other immigrants. Some are friendly,
many are not. A local Italian invites the Jewish immigrant for
dinner as a gesture of friendship. Can the Jew afford to turn
him down? He needs local allies. And if he goes and eats their
non-kosher meal, he has violated a religious practice and this
weakened his connection to the religion as a whole. However, if
Judaism did not have kosher restrictions, then the Jew could eat
the meal and have the rest of his religious practice unaffected.
The tension of being socially isolated could thus lead to abandoning
kashrus, which would then weaken observance generally and thus
hasten assimilation. Thus we cannot simply assume that dietary
restrictions will promote survival.

The same applies to all the other features of Judaism
which are suggested as naturally promoting survival. Dress, language
and customs create social pressure on immigrants, and every Jewish
community in the world started as immigrants. Scholarship can
be a positive agent of assimilation in host cultures where scholarship
is valued and the schools are open to Jews. In all cases we need
independent evidence that the feature of Judaism which is supposed
to explain survival will in fact do that. This independent evidence
is never provided.

Third, this theory begs the question at issue in
a subtle way. The point of the theory is to provide a naturalistic
explanation of Jewish survival. Even if the aspects of Judaism
cited by the theory do contribute to survival, we have to ask
how they themselves came to be, and why they are unique to Judaism.
If we have no naturalistic answer to these questions, then the
theory is ultimately a failure. (Compare explaining why George
is the only human to run the mile in three minutes by citing his
extraordinary leg muscles. If we cannot explain why his legs are
so uniquely strong, we still do not understand his achievement.)

Let us suppose that a list of features unique to
Judaism can be found which can be seen to contribute to Jewish
survival. How is it that only Judaism has such features? Surely
other cultures had brilliant men capable of innovating such features
for themselves? If not, surely others could have taken them from
us? It will not do to argue, as does Yehezkel Kaufmann21, that
the unique aspects of Judaism are due to Moses' genius, and that
genius has no rules by which its products could be expected. In
order to be appreciated as such, genius must produce recognizable
solutions to recognized problems. Einsein's genius was recognized
because physicists knew that physics was in trouble and Einstein
showed them how to resolve the problem. If no one else can see
the point of an innovation, it will not be labeled genius, but
insanity. If the explanation of Judaism's unique aspects is Moses'
genius, then others would definitely have learned his techniques
from us.

Finally, there are those who would give up the hope
to find a single explanation for Jewish survival. They argue that
each of the cited explanations contribute some portion of the
overall effect. Persecution does produce some will to resist;
Jews are gifted at cultural longevity; some features of Judaism
naturally contribute to survival and may have originated randomly.
No one element by itself produces survival - that is the reason
it was so easy to find counter-examples to the theories based
on one explanation alone.

This approach also fails, on three counts. First,
no evidence has been supplied that persecution, genius, and features
of Jewish practice contribute to survival at all. Indeed, the
evidence indicates that these factors do not promote survival.
If persecution promotes survival then at least some of the other
persecuted cultures should have survived. If there is a Jewish
genius for survival then at least one of the cultural experiments
should have succeeded. (Compare testing a drug to stop headaches.
If the headaches of three out of a thousand tested do stop, we
will not credit the drug with success.) And the naturalistic explanation
of Judaism's unique possession of survival characteristics has
not yet been provided. Thus in the light of the evidence we have
three times zero.

Second, it is not clear that other cultures which
disappeared did not share all three features. To assert without
proof that none of the cultures which disappeared through persecution
possessed people gifted at preserving traditions and features
fostering survival, would be mere cultural parochialism. Third,
without specifying the details of the combination of the elements
of explanation, this approach is too vague to be taken as a serious
attempt at explanation. What kinds and what extent of persecution
contribute to survival? What gifts in particular enable people
to preserve a culture? What features of a tradition contribute
help it survive? ( This approach reminds me of the remark of one
historian: "It is true that we cannot explain Jewish survival.
But we will!" Translation: "I believe with perfect faith
that everything can be explained naturalistically and therefore
there is no need to believe in G-d!")

The moral of this review of failed theories is clear:
there is no serious candidate for a naturalistic explanation of
Jewish survival. And let it not be suggested that our survival
is not surprising since there are other ancient cultures which
have also survived. The existence of Hinduism, Confucianism and
other long-lasting cultures has no relevance to Jewish survival.
The reason is that they existed under conditions in which survival
is expected whereas we existed under conditions which should
have caused us to disappear. Consider an analogy: at the beach
one hundred people are sunbathing and twenty are in the water.
A sudden undertow drags the twenty under the water for thirty
minutes. Of the twenty, eighteen drown and two survive. Now it
is no surprise that the one hundred on the beach survive, nor
is it a surprise that the eighteen drown. Only the survival of
the two who are under water for thirty minutes requires some special
explanation. Other ancient cultures which survived did so in their
own countries, as a large majority population with its own nation-state(s):
Why should they not survive? They are the people on the beach.
The Jews are the people under water. They survived conditions
which destroyed all others which experienced them. Only Jewish
survival needs a special explanation.

If Jewish history cannot be understood naturalistically,
then the blind application of naturalistic methodology to the
details of Jewish experience is a mistake. Imagine a botanist
studying the flora of a garden. After he examines and classifies
the flowers, shrubs, grasses and trees, he comes across a butterfly.
"What sort of plant is this?" he thinks. "It has
no roots, it flies..." As long as he tries to apply the methods
of botany to a butterfly, he will not understand! Similarly,
an attempt to understand facets of Jewish history by comparison
to those nations whose history is naturalistic cannot produce
understanding. For example, to explain similarity of certain Jewish
and non-Jewish ideas by asserting that we must have taken our
ideas from others just as all other nations do, will be a totally
unjustified comparison. If we were subject to cultural influence
like all other nations then we would not be here!

Thus the supernatural element of Jewish survival
must be squarely faced. Since there is no reasonable naturalistic
explanation, the unbiased investigator must at least seriously
entertain the possibility of a supernatural explanation and examine
it with as much objectivity as he can muster. We must reject the
attitude of the attitude of the philosopher who said that, had
he personally heard G-d speak at Sinai, he would have sought out
the nearest psychiatrist, since there cannot be a G-d, so his
experience would proove that he is crazy. When a consistent phenomenon
defies all recognized explanations, other avenues must be courageously
explored. In this way a Jew will finally discover the ultimate
Source of Jewish survival.

At this point we need to remember the evidence presented
in chapter I showing the superior quality of life enjoyed by Jewish
communities. After all, it is not enough to merely survive; the
conditions of life must be good enough to make it worthwhile to
survive! In the case of Jewish survival, the evidence shows that
this requirement is amply fulfilled. Indeed, the quality of life
is superior to that of our neighbors. (Of course, this
must be measured in terms of areas of common concern. It would
be absurd to claim superior quality of life on the grounds that
Jews keep kosher - no one else wants to keep kosher!) Success
in dealing with family life, addictions, crime, literacy and education
sets the Jewish community apart from its neighbors - even those
living in the same physical, economic and political environments.

[Comparison with the Amish and other similar communities
is not to the point here. They may enjoy a high quality of life,
but they achieve it at the price of isolation. Only under their
strictly controlled, isolated conditions do they achieve their
success. It may be true that any culture can achieve high quality
of life under strictly controlled and isolated conditions. This
does not reveal the contribution of the culture to the
quality of life. The point about Traditional Judaism is that it
enjoys its superior quality of life under the same conditions
in which the host culture does not achieve a similar quality of
life.]

Now, these two features of Jewish history that I
have mentioned - survival and quality of life - constitute an
unparalleled pragmatic success of high quality survival. We have
been able to survive and we have been able to produce consistently
higher quality of life under conditions in which no other civilization,
no other culture, no other religion has been able to function.

How is it that a civilization survives and flourishes?
I am not going to say anything profound now. I only wish I had
a profound answer to this question! Rather, I am just going to
give you a way of describing the phenomena.

A civilization is a modus operandi; it is a set
of rules for living. (Many of those rules are not taught formally,
but are implicit in the way people behave.) Those rules need to
be adapted to the conditions of life. If they are well adapted,
society will flourish. If not, there are two possibilities.
Either the society modifies its practice, or the civilization
disintegrates. If a civilization is too rigid, and the conditions
under which it lives change radically, then it will simply fall
apart. If it is more flexible, then it can perhaps change its
character to meet the new conditions.

Now here you have a civilization, Traditional Judaism,
which has lived under the most widely separated conditions that
mankind has ever experienced. There was Traditional Judaism during
periods of success when we had our own kingdom. There was Traditional
Judaism under conditions when we were conquered by outside powers
and were under the sphere of influence by those outside powers.
There was Traditional Judaism under conditions of exile; centralized
exile as it was in the Babylonian period and enormously scattered
exile under the conditions of the last two thousand years.

How can a civilization survive under such widely
differing conditions? If it were rigid and unable to change to
meet the new conditions, then it would simply fall apart. If
it were flexible and able to meet the new conditions, then there
ought to be dozens of different "Traditional" Judasims
today. Why? Because, we were living under such widely differing
conditions, that if we adapted to meet those new conditions,
then we ought to have widely different forms of "Traditional"
Judaism. Neither of these scenarios occurred. How can this be
explained?

The only way to explain it is as follows. Traditional
Judaism is not adapted to the variables in human existence.
Traditional Judaism is adapted to the constants in human
existence. It is not adapted to the conditions of life that change,
it is adapted only to the conditions of life that do not change.
Because, if Traditional Judaism adapted itself to living in the
mountains, then you would have a radically different Traditional
Judaism in the mountains than you have in the plains or in the
deserts. If Traditional Judaism adapted itself to a successful
economic period, then you would have radically different Traditional
Judaism in poorer economic periods. If Traditional Judaism adapted
itself to peaceful conditions, then when Jews lived under war,
you would have to have another type of Traditional Judaism.
If Traditional Judaism adapted itself to living under Moslems,
then you would have to have a radically different Traditional
Judaism living under Christians.

If Traditional Judaism had adapted itself to the
local conditions, then history ought to have caused the development
of many forms of Traditional Judaism today because historically
the local conditions varied widely. Traditional Judaism would
then look something like contemporary Christianity. If you have
one basic form of Traditional Judaism throughout the world believing
in the same basic principles, able to marry one another's children,
eat in one another's' homes, praying in one another's synagogues,
then Traditional Judaism cannot be adapted to local conditions.
Traditional Judaism is adapted only to the universal conditions
of human existence.

The existence of many non-Traditional forms of Judaism
does not affect this point. If we had followed the norms of human
experience there would be no single, recognizable, world-wide
Judaism which defines itself as representing the historically
continuous principles of Judaism. That other groups have decided
to change the historical tradition is true but irrelevant. The
surprise is not unanimous agreement on Jewish practice, but that
the diverse conditions of Jewish existence have allowed any continuity
in representing the historical foundations of Judaism.

But that in itself is a puzzle. Why is it? What
would lead a civilization to forgo the advantages of local adaptation?
No one else did it. Everyone else adapted to the local conditions
in order to get more fruitful interaction with local conditions.
How is it that Traditional Judaism should be the only civilization
that resists adaptation to local conditions and maintains its
pristine purity of adaptation only to the constants of human existence?
I have no naturalistic answer to this question. It is another
unique feature of Jewish history.

Finally, I think it can be argued that Traditional
Judaism has had a bigger impact on world civilization than any
other culture. This tiny, numerically insignificant group of
people has transformed world beliefs, world values, the world's
basic view of existence more so than any other group.

Think of what the world was like three thousand
years ago and imagine a rough progress of development to the present
day. The world has been getting more and more Jewish as time goes
on. Three thousand years ago everyone was polytheistic. Today,
there are many less polytheists. Perhaps Hinduism qualifies as
real bona fide polytheism. Perhaps some strains of Christianity
qualify as polytheism, perhaps not. But, from a time when the
whole world was polytheistic, the world has become largely rid
of that particular distortion. The ancient world in which the
gods were simply super humans with all the frailties and the problems
of mankind - fighting with one another and so forth - has largely
been overcome. If you take the Christians and the Moslems together,
you have considerably more than one and a half billion people
who regard our Bible as divine in some sense (even though in many
cases they misinterpret and misapply it).

The concept of justice is essentially a Biblical
concept. In fact, it could be argued that morality itself is
a Biblical invention. In the ancient world there was no concept
of morality. And in so far as morality has become a modern idea
to which the vast majority of mankind attaches itself, at least
as an idea (practice is another matter!) is also the Judaising
of world civilization.

Now all this is an enormous surprise. Even the
Greeks' contributions to world civilization are outgrown. Greek
science has now been replaced by modern science. In fact much
of what had to be done in the Renaissance was to outgrow Greek
science. Greek philosophy? There are still some who study the
ancient Greek thinkers. But as an impact or as a contribution
to the living ideology of mankind, the Greeks have largely been
passed, as the Romans have been passed, and as the medieval period
and the Renaissance and all the rest have passed. Only Traditional
Judaism is still making contributions to the present day quality
or conditions of life of world civilization as a whole.

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